Category Archives: Opinion

The day is finally here! Those of us who have pre-purchased Heart of Thorns can finally get our hands on the new Revenant profession. All of the videos have looked so cool! I couldn’t wait to tear into my already-level-eighty hero and take him out for a spin.

Now, I had read and watched many of the hands-on play impressions from bloggers and YouTubers that received a beta portal during the last closed beta, and I remember them all saying how much they wished they could have had access to better gear choices to really get a feel for the profession. They remarked about how weak the Revenant felt with only Celestial runes on their armor. I was very pleased, therefore, to find that my own Revenant came fresh out of the box this time with a large selection of armor, weapons, sigils, and rune choices for me to play with. Surely I would be able to find something that really felt right.

Well, in full disclosure, I haven’t spent a huge amount of time tinkering around with the profession yet, but what I’ve seen so far is both impressive and underwhelming. On the one hand, I’m very intrigued by the concepts embodied in the Revenant, and all of the new animations and skill effects are certainly cool. But on the other hand, this guy just feels like he hits with weapons made out of feathers held together by wisps of cloud and baby farts.

My own Guardian build slots absolutely no Power, Precision, or Ferocity stats, but he can bring down Veterans in Orr in less than three seconds. This Revenant – with full Berserker or Rampager gear – feels like he takes at least twenty seconds to drop trash mobs! I am literally piling on every single trait, utility skill, and elite skill that I can find to boost damage; this dude just doesn’t seem to have the horsepower.

Maybe I’ve got it all wrong. Maybe this profession isn’t even supposed to have the capacity for decent DPS. Maybe he was intended as battlefield support only. Maybe his damage-based specialization and legends have yet to be revealed. I’ll keep checking it out throughout the weekend, and I’ll update this post as necessary. But for now, color me confused at how something that looks so cool can be such a wuss.

Now that the June 23rd update to the traits, conditions, and professions of the game has gone live, little old Fizlip feels like he has just received a load of birthday, Christmas, and Hanukkah gifts all at once!

Never one to play the meta, my little level 80 Asuran Guardian would have been laughed out of most discussions of competitive viability. I always wanted him to be a tank that set fire to everything around him, so I specced him that way. All his gear has always been of the ‘Dire’ variety (Toughness, Vitality, and Condition Damage), and all of his runes and sigils and whatnot boost condition damage and burning duration. This was considered a stupid move by most in the past, as It seemed that the maximum amount of burning damage that I could realistically apply was around 650 per second or so. And since he wasn’t specced for Power, Precision, and Furiosity, his regular hits didn’t do a whole lot of damage either.

Strangely enough, Fizlip’s ‘handicap’ didn’t really seem to hurt him very much in sPvP, where he more often than not scored as the top player of the round, but I could see the effects in PvE. It would take him a lot longer (and many more hits) to bring down most enemies when compared to those with ‘zerker gear.

That has all changed now, though, after the patch that ArenaNet dropped on June 23rd! Just as an experiment, I started agroing everything in the area and then stacked burning (Yay! Stacking burning!) as fast I could. I was able to apply 10 stacks of burn in less than two seconds, but all those enemies were dead by the time I registered the fact that I had made it to double digits!

I don’t know how long this particular Golden Age of Fizlip (TM) will continue – I’ve already heard grumblings about the insane amount of possible burning damage over on Reddit – but it sure is fun while it lasts!